Six Poems – Anthony Perillo
February 10, 2018
Personal War
I dream of battlefields
in the pitch black of night
where only gunfire serves as the light
If I had a family
surely I would long for home
I am the dancer
I am the finicky eater
I am the prisoner of war
All I know of you is from
secondhand stories and photographs
but I bear your name and so I live
vicariously through you
Somniloquy
To watch you
sleep was something I wanted but I needed
sleep myself
Was it your cry that wore me
out or the brisk autumn breeze that broke my body
into early slumber?
It is winter
and I’m tired now more than ever
but I’ll sleep when I’m dead
for as long as I can
find the peace
to rest my head
Palach
The flames come up
The flames go down
This is to inform you
that I died before twenty-one
Dreams of revolt swept past me
but one caught up
Prague Spring began and each day
brought new troops from Warsaw
I received a warning from the outside
forces but I said no in petroleum ether
I was a man restrained
and now there’s no need for restraint
after Jim Harrison
Zajíc
Capricious death or calculated sacrifice
A family bound by burden
Eyelids like ruptured dams
We wept in the rain—
on the asphalt—
decades apart—
amidst our search for meaning
in modern life
A coward is conceived in suicide
A hero is born in self-immolation
No such thing as a gentle revolution
So say goodbye to the boys, the river and the forest
after Jan Zajíc
Hanged Man
a nest of hairs
rests atop
his hanging head
one (omniscient) eye
no pupil present
right arm wrapped behind
right leg
loins look like raisins
body / organs / veins / valves / ligaments
comprised of dark crooked lines
except lingula of the left lung
a holey cross
why oh
why was the hanged
man hanged
After Leonard Baskin
Mount Rushmore
gutzon borglum was the father of lincoln borglum.
lincoln was named after abraham, gutzon’s favorite president.
abraham died two years before gutzon was born.
when gutzon died, lincoln oversaw the job.